Various carboxybetaines, sulfobetaines, homopolymers and copolymers thereof have been described in the prior art. U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,473,998 and 3,478,001 describe sulfobetaines and copolymers thereof with acrylonitrile. U.S. Pat. No. 3,497,482 describes homopolymers of sulfobetaines and copolymers with certain ethylenically unsaturated monomers. U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,777,872; 2,935,493; and 2,958,682 describe carboxybetaines and copolymers thereof with various ethylenically unsaturated compounds. U.S. Pat. No. 3,671,502 describes copolymers comprising units derived from carboxybetaines or sulfobetaines and units derived from hydroxyalkyl acrylates/methacrylates, polyalkylene glycol acrylateslmethacrylates or polyglycerol acrylates/methacrylates. U.S. Pat. No. 5,500,087 describes amino-multicarboxylate starch ether derivatives which are useful as retention and strength aids in papermaking.
However, the prior art does not describe multicarboxybetaine monomers or zwitterionic monomers having amino-multicarboxylic acid functionality. Moreover, the prior art does not describe preparing copolymers from such monomers.